[ih] question re. early adoption of email

[mfidelman at meetinghouse.net (Miles Fidelman)]

Hi Folks,

Maybe a silly question, but....

I remember arriving at MIT in the Fall of 1971, immediately getting an 
account on the AI lab ITS system, and a month or so later, Ray Tomlinson 
sent the first ARPANET email.

Pretty quickly, a mail program showed up, and within a few months, email 
was flowing all around the ARPANET.

But, I'm wondering about the play-by-play from Ray sending mail between 
two adjacent machines at BBN, to mail being available on the early batch 
of Internet hosts.

For those running TENEX, I assume they ftp'd Ray's code (or was it some 
precursor to ftp?).  But.... how did people actually find out about the 
code - after all, there weren't any email lists to announce it on.

And, for those not running TENEX - how did folks find out enough details 
to code up mailers and clients for other machines, and then get the word 
out?

Anybody remember the play-by-play?

Thanks,

Miles Fidelman

-- 
In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice.
In practice, there is.  .... Yogi Berra